It could very well be that the first book I read in 2014 might be the best book I’ll read all year. Stoner is an unusual book. It has a fairly “meh” title. It’s written by an American academic and poet by the name of John Williams, who only published four books during his career read more

I am not a bragging man, but let it be known that I have had my fair share of tonkatsu, essentially a Japanese pork cutlet deep fried in bread crumbs. When people tell me of a good tonkatsu joint, anywhere in the world, I go and eat. It’s that simple. Last month, the missus and read more

This movie has moved up my review list because I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. Compliance is the kind of movie that’s so crazy and so against all common sense that you have to keep reminding yourself that it’s based on a true story. It is inspired by the infamous read more

It’s been a little while since my last unofficial NaNoWriMo update, and there is a good reason for that. After being derailed by work and whatever else last time, my progress has been more or less halted by my latest distraction/addiction: Serial. If you haven’t heard of it, I’d recommend that you stop whatever you’re doing read more

Feeling kinda destroyed

It hasn’t been easy lately. Not that long ago I posted about what a challenging stretch it had been when my four-month-old boy contracted acute bronchitis. Both my wife and I were infected too, and together we struggled through a week of exhaustion and little sleep. That was followed by a couple of weeks of bliss, marked by great sleeps (relatively speaking — once you have kids everything becomes relative) and an increasingly active and reactive boy who started smiling and playing a lot more. It looked like we were finally turning the corner.

Of course, that was short-lived. About eight days ago, the little fella got sick again and had a fever for a day or two. But the worst part was his cough, which was getting worse by the day and contributed to us getting virtually no sleep at all. He had been acting up a bit in the nights leading up to the day symptoms began to show, and including last night we have now had 10 full days of torture.

To make matters worse, all that coughing and sucking his hands and rubbing his eyes gave him conjunctivitis, meaning he would wake with his eyes virtually plastered shut every morning. It’s excruciating watching any small child battle illness like that, let alone your own.

The cherry on top was that my wife has gotten it too, and had to try looking after him with a fever for a couple of days while I was at work. Our immune systems were shot from getting horrible sleep for days and it was only a matter of time it was going to happen despite taking all the precautions we could. The worst part is that it becomes very difficult to recover when the baby must rely on the mother to get better but the mother can’t get better because she can’t get any decent rest.

For now, I have miraculously escaped with just bad headaches and dizziness from the lack of sleep, but I think I have been able to stay away from the virus because my body knows it can’t go down too (touch wood). However, to continue the string of bad luck I (and I alone) suffered a bout of bad food poisoning last night (was on the verge of passing out) and as a result feel absolutely destroyed at the moment. But to give my wife the time she needs to rest over the last couple of days I’ve been taking early morning and night duties (up until about midnight) — she must take the overnight shift for feeds, giving me around five hours of (generally) uninterrupted sleep in the spare room, which I can’t believe I now think is the best thing ever!

Funnily enough, work has now become my “rest” time. I usually get a splitting headache by the end of it but I actually find it somewhat relaxing to be able to get out of the house.

Later on we’re heading back to the hospital for more meds. Initially we thought this time wasn’t as bad as the last, but it’s turned out to be worse. I can only hope that this phase passes quickly and things can get back to normal. I’ve had no exercise for a week and I can feel the previous months of hard work melting away. The only positive I can take out of this is that due to taking my son to the hospital last Friday we had to skip our plans of watching Battleship, which, from most accounts, means we dodged a massive bullet.

As for this blog, I’ve actually had a few completed posts saved up from before which I haven’t yet posted, so I’ll release those to keep some activity happening.

PS: No freelancing work as helped a lot, but I do have to finish a couple of books and write reviews for them in the next couple of weeks. Ordinarily I would be thrilled as the books are awesome, but right now it feels like a burden. Man, just can’t seem catch a break.